Letters to the Editor
An Evening Remembered
Few Dartmouth men have been known personally by more alumni than Al Foley, whose passing is recorded in the March ALUMNI MAGAZINE.
Al was a born storyteller and gregarious individual. But here is one story about Al that I think should be recorded.
During the autumn of 1936, I drove my car with Al, George Frost of the English Department, Leslie Murch of Physics, and Herb Hill of History - night after night - to almost every corner of New Hampshire in behalf of Roosevelt's campaign for re-election.
On the Saturday evening before the election we were the guests of St. Paul's School in Concord. The previous Saturday evening the former Governor, John G. Winant, had presented the Republican side. Our team, with Al as the speaker, was asked to discuss the Democratic picture.
Before dinner we had a drink with the assistant headmaster, George Kittredge, Mrs. Kittredge, and a few other guests. Dinner was in the school dining hall. There were a number of parents present, one of whom turned her back on me and refused to talk when she learned that I was a Democrat and a Roosevelt supporter.
When we entered the assembly hall we found that almost every student was wearing a huge sunflower covering his chest. It was all too obvious that they were supporting the Republican candidate, Governor Landon of Kansas. Among them was a young man who later was to serve in the United States Senate as a Democrat from Maryland.
The audience was unbelievably hostile, but that didn't deter Al. He opened with his usual wealth of homely Vermont tales. In a few moments you could feel the tension slacken.
His talk lasted only ten or twelve minutes. As his main point he asked his listeners to compare the political situation in our country with Russia, with its dictatorial system filled with bloodshed, on one hand, and France, with its myriad splinter parties unable to govern, on the other. He spoke of the comparatively calm political situation that existed in the United States, with its two-party system, despite seemingly overwhelming problems. Closing with the plea that all Americans continue to try and understand both sides and remember that the majority rules, he was greeted with thunderous applause, stamping feet, and a standing ovation.
It was a heart-warming occasion. I am sure that there were tears in At's eyes.
Sometimes I wonder how many of those students, many of them now titans of American industry and the circles of power, remember that evening.
Annapolis, Md.
Film's the Thing
With due appreciation for the well-deserved tribute to Hopkins Center written by my good friend, Professor Emeritus Henry B. Williams, for the December issue, I should like to call attention to the one major branch of contemporary art served by the center which he failed to mention; motion pictures.
It is true that when Hopkins Center was built there were no film study courses in the curriculum, so no academic facilities for academic work in film were provided, an oversight which many of us rue to this day. But the Dartmouth Film Society, which had used Webster Hall and numerous other auditoriums on campus for its screenings since its founding in 1949, found a new and magnificent home in Spaulding Auditorium where it continues to this day to offer twice-weekly exposures to classics of the film medium.
Indeed, readers of this magazine should know that more undergraduates attend Film Society screenings than all other Hopkins Center events combined. Film programs are selected and, for the most part, administered by a student directorate whose current achievement is a record 2,118 subscriptions for the spring 1978 series.
Hanover, N.H.
Too Much Entertainment
Perhaps I am more serious than most, for despite my only having completed three years at Dartmouth, I still find myself wishing for academic journal-level articles when the coming of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE puts the College before my mind again. There must be policies on the qualitative goals of the education that Dartmouth is trying to instill which could be reported on their own merits. Most of the professors and some students and many alumni should be able to write of their life's work, studies, or experience in a socially meaningful and instructive fashion. I don't have much to do with "the good life"; I have to admit I normally put the ALUMNI MAGAZINE aside without finding something to interest me. It is too entertainment oriented and too little academic-levelinformation oriented for my needs or interests.
Allston, Mass.
Outstanding Representatives
I have just had a very gratifying experience; as the only alumnus living within 50 miles of Red River and Angel Fire, New Mexico, I watched the Dartmouth women's ski team compete in the 1978 National Intercollegiate Ski Championship meet.
Thirty-one colleges had representatives, from as far north as Alaska University, and the Big Green gals worked hard and were an outstanding representative team. They were not only great skiers but good-looking as well! It was a pleasant experience to meet this fine group.
As one who opposed coeducation, I'm glad to say no one could have brought more honor to Dartmouth than this dedicated team. I congratulate them all, their fine coach Pam Reed, and Al Merrill who was waxing the skis so this team could perform so well. They were all great, and they wore the Big Green uniforms with distinction.
El Prado, N.M.
[The women's ski team finished third in thenational championships. Ed.]
Balloons and Smoke Rings
I found the following item in the pages of the Sacramento Union, and thought the readers of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE might find it interesting:
"Listen to former Marquette Coach Al McGuire tell how he recruited Butch Lee away from the University of Pennsylvania:
" 'It was no contest - took me about a minute and a half. They had a three-year rule in the Ivy League, see, so I told him, "You go to Penn and you'll be playing at 5:15 in the third floor walkup YMCA gym against guys that got a two-hand dribble and their underwear hanging out of their pants. You come with me and it'll be SRO (standing room only) every night with balloons and smoke rings and the band will be playing and the cheerleaders' shirts will be bouncing up and down.." That's all it took, he came with me.' "
Sacramento, Calif.
[McGuire was once, a long rime ago, freshmanbasketball coach at Dartmouth. Ed.]
Free Pursuit
Reading Shelby Grantham's fine article "The New Classics" [March issue] brought strongly to mind the excellent undergraduate education I received as a classics major. The nucleus of the department that instructed me so well remains, and I know that many semirecent alumni will smile in recognition of the names Dale Sweeney, Jack Zarker, Charles Fuqua, and Paul Swarney, great teachers one and all.
I came to Dartmouth in 1963, a graduate of Boston Latin School, where all students received (or maybe "endured") six years of rigorous classical training guaranteed to reduce the College Board in Latin to a 30-minute sprint. With this strong philological background, I was able to indulge the classics major all the more as a "gratuitous, free intellectual pursuit." I've been a college teacher myself now for ten years (Miles College, Santa Clara University), and I know now how generously and how soundly I was treated as an undergraduate.
Los Altos Hills, Calif.
Having myself acquired a late interest in my earlier-studied classics through the study of religion, I was delighted by Shelby Grantham's article "The New Classics." I think classics in translation are a must, since where we come from is part of who we are, and most of us can't begin to compass the classics in the original languages. But I also think learning Greek and Latin is highly salutary, since if "the limits of my language are the limits of my world" (Benjamin Lee Whorf), my knowledge of language structure is a tool for the clarity and flexibility of my language and thus of my thought. (By the way, I reject Professor Bien's aspersion that the Hebrews were not "full of life and joy ... had passions and committed crimes ... slept with each other, and bore children, and sang, and played games." They did all these and much more.)
But as a teacher of languages inter alia, I simply cannot believe that a language and thus a people can come alive for one unless one learns the language in all four modes (reading, writing, speaking, hearing). I know about Auerbach's distinction between "high" and "vulgar" speech, yet I never felt the Romans were real because I never felt that Latin was a language which anybody ever actually talked inthe street. I don't mean that we should learn to order French fries or describe a baseball game in Latin, because I doubt the Romans ever did that. But surely a literature can be felt as alive only if it is felt to be an integral part of a much larger whole, or a living, breathing language and people - even and especially if it is a past and not a present one.
Charleston, W. Va.
Correction
In the summer of 1977 the Classics Department of Dartmouth College became a co-sponsor, along with the University of Missouri (Columbia) and the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore), of a new archaeological expedition to be undertaken at Kourion, Cyprus.
Contrary to the suggestion made in the March issue ("The New Classics"), however, neither Professor Jeremy Rutter nor any other member of the Classics Department expects to be a direct participant in the project in the immediate future. The first season of excavation, in which three current Dartmouth undergraduates will participate, will begin in June 1978 under the joint direction of Professor David Soren '68 (University of Missouri) and Dr. Diana Buitron (Walters Art Gallery).
Hanover, N.H.
The Symbol (cont.)
In regards to the search for a College symbol, may I propose the name "The Dartmouth Granite." In the traditions of Alabama's Crimson Tide or the professional basketball team the New Orleans Jazz, "The Dartmouth Granite" would convey to the world in no uncertain terms the hardy nature and unshakable strength of the Dartmouth teams. My only fear is that, if adopted as the new symbol, sports at Dartmouth would be taken for granite.
Warehouse Point. Conn.
The ALUMNI MAGAZINE welcomes comment from its readers. For publication, letters should be signed and addressed specifically to the Magazine (not copies of communications to other organizations or individuals). Letters exceeding 400 words in length will be condensed by the editors.
[Maurice Rapf is director of film studies at theCollege. Ed.]
[Charles Dickinson is assistant professor ofreligion and philosophy at Morris HarveyCollege. Ed.]
[Steven E. Ostrow is assistant professor ofclassics at the College. Ed.]
